Galina Starovoytova

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In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Vasilyevna and the family name is Starovoitova.
Galina Starovoytova
Галина Васильевна Старовойтова
Leningrad University
Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography
Known forhuman rights activism with participation in the Moscow Helsinki Group
AwardsCommander's Grand Crosses of the Order of the Cross of Vytis

Galina Vasilyevna Starovoitova (

ethnic minorities
and promote democratic reforms in Russia. She was shot to death in her apartment building in 1998.

Early life and academic career

Born in the

Watson Institute for International Studies of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island
, lecturing on the politics of self-determination for ethnic minorities.

Political career

Galina Starovoitova began her political career in 1989, when she

St. Petersburg
), where she served until the dissolution of the Congress in September 1993. As with the USSR parliament, she won her seat in the Russian parliament by a landslide over a competing slate of male candidates.

In the summer of 1991, Starovoitova served as spokesperson for Yeltsin in his successful campaign for the presidency of the

Russian Federation. At that time, Starovoitova had been promoted by several democratic forces for the post of either vice president or minister of defense. Instead, she became presidential advisor on interethnic issues until the end of 1992,[3] when she was dismissed by Yeltsin apparently under pressure from conservative elements for criticizing Moscow's support for Ossetians against the Ingush in the North Caucasus.[4]

Before re-launching her legislative career in 1995, Starovoitova spent her time at the Institute for the Economy in Transition in

Democratic Russia Movement, and as a fellow in the Washington-based United States Institute of Peace. With former political prisoner Sergei Grigoryants, and funding from George Soros[citation needed
], she co-organized a series of international conferences in Moscow in the mid-1990s around the theme "The KGB: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow".

In 1995, she was elected to the Russian

Lev Ponomarev and the dissident Orthodox priest Gleb Yakunin.[5][6]

Galina Starovoitova was a strong defender of

FSK director, and others convinced Yeltsin that military operations were necessary and would be very quick and successful.[5] When the war began, Starovoitova called Yeltsin "Boris the Bloody" and said: "The historic time of Yeltsin the reformer has passed, and his new regime can turn out to be dangerous not just for Russia".[7]

She was an editorial board member of Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, a peer-reviewed scholarly journal published in cooperation with the American University and Moscow State University.[9]

Over the years, Galina Starovoitova attended numerous international meetings and discussions, where she had conversations with world leaders including Margaret Thatcher, Jacques Chirac, Václav Havel, Henry Kissinger and Lech Wałęsa.

Starovoitova was strongly against the omnipresence of security services in Russia and believed that lustration was necessary but none of the other elected representatives supported her. Starovoitova has drafted a law on lustration and presented it to the Duma at least 5 times.[8] Her subsequent murder has been linked by some to her work towards making lustration a law in Russia and her opposition to revanche of KGB into power. She said, "I propose a decision to order a medical examination of deputies of the State Duma, especially in the light of yesterday's voting on the battle against anti-semitism, when many of our colleagues gave us reason to doubt their mental health".[10]

In April 1998, she became the leader of "

FSB in July 1998. Galina Starovoitova tried to prevent such people from coming to power using her personal connections with different political figures and with Yeltsin's wife, according to Valeriy Borschov.[8]

Starovoitova opposed the broad mandate of FSB. She made this part of her political platform in "Democratic Russia".[8] She voted against nominating Yevgeny Primakov for Prime Minister.[7]

Assassination and investigation

Starovoitova was gunned down in the entryway of her apartment building in St. Petersburg on 20 November 1998.

FSB boss under Yeltsin and future Prime Minister of Russia.[12] In June 2005, two hitmen, Yuri Kolchin and Vitali Akishin, were convicted of murder and sentenced to 20 and 23 years of imprisonment respectively. Akishin was named as the one who pulled the trigger and Kolchin as one who had organized the attack. On 28 September 2006, Vyacheslav Lelyavin was sentenced to 11 years in prison for his role in organizing the murder.[1] Sergey Musin, Oleg Fedosov and Igor Bogdanov are still wanted for the investigation.[13]

According to official investigation, the murder was organized by former

Valeria Novodvorskaya claimed that the Russian state security services murdered Starovoytova to eliminate her influence on Boris Yeltsin and her resistance in appointing former KGB general Yevgeny Primakov as Prime Minister of Russia.[2] Novodvorskaya suggested that FSB general Viktor Cherkesov accompanied Starovoitova just before the murder because he knew that she was due to be killed.[2]

Award and tomb

The headstone on Starovoytova's tomb at the Nikolskoye Cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in Saint Petersburg, 2009

Shortly before her death, Galina Starovoitova established an award "for contributions to the protection of human rights and consolidation of democracy in Russia".

The award was sponsored by Irina Thomason and the Fund for the Protection of the Rights of Children and Women. The recipients so far have been:

Starovoitova was buried in a prominent tomb (pictured here in 2009) in the Nikolskoe Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg. The monument depicts a tattered Russian flag and purportedly uses the pavement from where she was assassinated to cover the grave.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ Grigoryants, Sergei (2001). "Прощание: гибель правозащитного демократического движения в России" [Farewell: the death of human rights democratic movement in Russia]. Index on Censorship (in Russian) (16).
  2. ^ a b c Ten years without Starovoytova, Мария Калужская, Grani.ru, 20 November 2008
  3. ^
    doi:10.1080/1060586X.1999.10641473
    . Retrieved 30 December 2012.
  4. ^ "Bullets Silence Voice of Reason". Perspective. IX (2). November–December 1998. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
  5. ^
    ISBN 0-14-028487-7
  6. ISBN 0-374-52738-5
    .
  7. ^ a b c Bullets Silence Voice of Reason, KM, Perspective, Volume IX, Number 2 (November–December 1998), Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology, and Policy, Boston University
  8. ^
    Radio Svoboda
    , 20 November 2006
  9. ^ A Tribute to Galina Starovoitova Archived 2 September 2016 at the Wayback Machine, Demokratizatsiya, Winter 1999, p. 8.
  10. ^ Russia loses an icon, 21 November 1998, BBC News
  11. ^ "Russia: High-Profile Killings, Attempted Killings in the Post-Soviet Period". Radio Free Europe. 19 October 2006. Retrieved 30 December 2012.
  12. ^ "Yeltsin launches probe into top politician's murder". CNN. 21 November 1998. Archived from the original on 25 December 2007. Retrieved 30 November 2006.
  13. ^ Верховный суд оставил в силе приговор по делу Старовойтовой, lenta.ru, 1 March 2007
  14. ISBN 978-1-4000-6682-7
    , p. 38.

External links
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